E-Commerce

What is E-Commerce? 

E-Commerce is the performing of transactions online, such as shopping on the internet to buy Food and clothing. There are many different retail shops and more commonly now food supermarkets that offer an online service, they deliver the item you buy online to your door. 

Brick and Click: 

Many shops that started on the high street have now migrated to the online market, such as Sainsbury’s who have been opened on the high street since 1869 and began their online service in 1996. This helped them to reach more people and to earn more profit. As they now offer a mobile supermarket which allows people to order their food online and for it to be delivered to them instead of them having to go to the store. However for some companies this may cause a problem as their high street stores become less profitable than their online stores.

Purely Online:

However for a company like Amazon they have only ever been online providing a

fast, reliable and direct service. They have warehouses across the world that store all the merchandise that they offer online, people work around the clock to find and package the items people click to buy online. Amazon have no plans to have any high street stores as their merchandise comes from lots of different sellers, they also have no need to go on the high street as their online store makes them a lot of profit. Amazon began as purely a book seller, but they grew so big that they decided to expand their range of products, offering small businesses to sell their merchandise on Amazon. Amazon deliver worldwide, their delivery system is central to their online sales.

Click and Collect:   
Most stores now offer a click and collect system, which allows the customers to order an item in the store or online and collect in the store in from 3-6 days later. This is convenient for the customer and means more money for the stores as when they do not have the product in the store but they are still able to offer the product to the customer.

E-bay:

E- bay has also made a huge online presence, allowing the online user to be the seller. E-bay is a huge auction based website where customers are able to bid on products they like, it also allows people to sell their own unwanted goods or for small businesses to sell their goods. E-bay itself is not in control of the buying and selling of products, so the feedback that customers provide only effects the seller, not eBay.

 E-bay is different to Amazon in many ways; firstly all of the delivery of the sold goods is down to the person selling the goods, not E-bay. So if the product does not come on time or is not in a good condition it is not E-bay that will be blamed for this but the seller or Courier/Post Office. E-bay also does not have fixed prices, it is all due to bidding, and people are more attracted to the idea of bidding than to a fixed price.

E-bay also use the paying system of Paypal which is a secure way of spending your money as only Paypal know the details of the seller and the buyer but they will never know each other’s. The information all goes through your bank and Paypal isolate your information.

Future for E-Commerce: 

 Many high street shops have begun to struggle without having online delivery services, such as Morrisons who began to fall behind its competitors on sales in the food supermarket business. It has recently launched its online delivery service to the public, widening its range of customers and sales. E-Commerce is becoming increasingly popular for company's as it is an easy way to be linked tpo world wide customers in a fast and efficient way 24 hours a day. 

Advantages and Disadvantages:

 

For the:	Advantages of E-commerce	Disadvantages of E-Commerce
Business	More customers, gives them a worldwide link. They do not have to pay rent for stores and do not have to employ people to run the stores.	They still need to care for people who are working for their online team and may need to expand their workforce if their online business gets bigger. The turn over may be very high but it all can be lost very quickly due to back feedback or someone’s bad experience.
Customer	It Is very quick and easy to use; you can buy nearly anything online. You do not have to travel to a store or use any money in petrol. Also the return system is very easy online.	If you are buying a piece of clothing you are not able to try it on. You could be scammed by an online seller. It requires you to have a card or PayPal account.
Employees	People would have to be higher qualified benefiting everyone.	Lots of people would lose out on their jobs, shop assistant and shop managers would not be needed.
Suppliers	Suppliers earn more money and do not need an outlet.	They need more workers to deal with the orders and to keep up with packaging and delivering.